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[RC] Can you say 'free horse'?! - lengthy but some help is needed - sandy . l . holderHi folks, it's been awhile since I've been on ridecamp. The last couple of months have been hectic - traveling every weekend (no, unfortunately not riding my horse) and/or building/completing our new barn. Oh, and I should mention, through all of this that I was GIVEN a 'free horse'. I've missed you but now I'm BACK and obviously as you might imagine, needing your help once again!! So let me start by talking about our 'free, new horse'. Can you say 'vet bills'??!! Overall exam (including to guess his age), teeth, worming, blood work (thought a baseline would be a good idea), etc. Couple that with lots of research into what we could discern of his past, we discovered that we were given an 11 year old unbroken pureblood unregistered arabian stallion (and confirmed that he'd never been bred). Can you say 'Sandy has a hole in her head?!'. Well, he's a real gentle boy who had a bad homelife (yes, another rescue to go with my first) and was good enough that after some time could be turned out with the geldings (gasp! I know, we did MUCH consulting on this but it's turned out well over the past 4 months). Evidently American Justice (his name), originally came from a breeder in Morgan Hill who had 40 horses including his sire and grandsire and that most if not all of them were unregistered. Coupled with the fact that I need a stallion like I need a hole in my head (no offense to those reputable breeders out there who I'll be sure to come to when and if I ever decide to breed a mare) and we now have a NICER GELDING with a good start on his training thanks to 8 weeks away at bootcamp!! I'd love to tell you the comments my two 19 year old sons made about the gelding but that's too long of a story. . . suffice it to say they were APPALLED I'd do that to 'poor Justice'. Oh well, I needed to plug that hole in my head. Anyway, so here's where the help comes in. I've now had him about 4 months and just received the results of some bloodwork that was done on him 2 months ago. The only negative results were as follows: - Globulin = 2.4 (LOW) based on a range of 2.6 - 5.6 - Cholesterol = 56 (LOW) based on a range of 70 - 150 - Creatinine = 1.1 (LOW) based on a range of 1.2 - 2.0 I've migrated him slowly to the same diet as my other gelding (complete advantage, 3 way, a little flax seed and a little rice bran until he had some weight on him but no longer), including supplements (Dynamite, Biotin, Glucosomine and Vitamin E as well as ProBios) and he seems to be doing well. Being in the bay area of California, I generally feed my horses oat hay and pellets (Elk Grove Forage blend - 1/3 each grass, oat and alfalfa) and an occasional flake of alfalfa but since it's rained recently and the hills have greened up, they've both been weaned off of most hay and are munching happily on 12 acres of pasture. Unfortunately I don't know if the Dynamite will 'supplement' him enough or not (link to ingredients is: http://www.dynamiteonline.com/newcat.nsf/(Catalog+Lookup)/Dynamite+(R)++-+HORSE+PRODUCTS?OpenDocument ) Your thoughts would be much appreciated on both what I've thought about and done so far as well as on the supplementing part. It's ok, I'm pretty thick skinned (had 2 trainers tell me NOT to get my original rescue but Metallica/Tally has turned out great), so feel free to share your thoughts on my 'free rescue'! Hope all is well with you and yours during the holiday season! All the best, Sandy, Tally and Justice (the old stallion and new gelding) _________________________________________________________________ The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is a Delaware limited liability partnership.
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